Podcasts

Scott Goldman is Performance Psychologist at the Golden State Warriors. Prior to that he was at the Detroit Lions, after being the head of Performance Psychology at the Miami Dolphins. Through his own shop, Athletic Intelligence Quotient (AIQ), Scott and his team consult with a wide array of pro teams in the USA (NBA, MLB, NFL), Europe and now Australia. Scott is renowned for his humility and sincerity, in an approach where he builds organically with an individual, rather than dictates from on high. Today we hear the role data, analytics and intuition plays in helping to build the mindset of world class athletes.

Graham Dudley comes into sportstech companies like a specialist coach, to help them make sense of data, and turn artificial intelligence into actual intelligence. He founded Global Performance Testing in 2011, and works with companies in North America, Europe, Australasia and now India. Graham and his team assess products, provide evaluation and validation, tech support, training, analytics and cyber security. In today’s show, Graham says overselling and underdelivering is a major modern problem in sportstech.

Aussie media executive Craig Green was the International Marketing Director & Advertising Boss during his 20-year career with Sony Entertainment. He then did the same thing at EA Games & EA Sport. Craig now has his own shop, SprtsHQ, creating an all-encompassing digital collectible business model, amplifying leagues, engaging fans, and integrating commercial partners. SprtsHQ won the world-wide race to become official licensee to the FIFA World Cup, and are now surging into both grass roots and elite level sport.

Aaron Eisman is renowned in America as a social media savant. He’s run socials for the NFL Network, Bleacher Report and Turner Sports. Aaron now has his own shop, Eisman Digital, and he works hand-in-hand with brands throughout North America, Europe and Asia-Pacific to “cut through the clutter” and “stop the scroll”. Today, Aaron opens up with key lessons on his 15 years in the sports entertainment industry, and his time at the coalface of the globe’s social media revolution.

Clubfunders’ co-founder Blake Lawrence grew up as one of five boys with a single Mum. He saw first-hand how money can be a major hurdle to jump for kids to play sport. Fellow co-founder Stuart Jacobs grew up in South Africa, and was a gun young golf talent. But golf is a sport that requires significant financial investment to make it all the way to the top. Stuart eventually reached a financial tipping point. These two have come together to create Clubfunders- an open source banking platform that aligns sports bodies, clubs and leagues, along with participants and sponsors. It’s a win-win-win formation, where leagues grow their competitions, players have more access to sport, and sponsors can realise greater return on their investments. It’s a model for junior, community and elite level sport. Blake and Stuart join us on the show today to talk us through the mission, the growth and their cutting edge open banking technology.

The sport of fencing is a throw-back to medieval sword fighting, with its modern incarnation drawing from the Italian Renaissance. Fencing was an original Olympic sport in 1896, and has captivated people with its grace, daring and precision ever since. Callum Laurenson, an electrical engineer and avid fencer, began a journey in 2012 to solve a perennial problem for the sport- electrical wires. Laurenson, and co-founders Tony Grubman and Rachel Muir-Smith, have built multiple iterations of world-leading patented wireless technology for the sport they love. Today, Cal takes us inside the inventors lab, and tells us how it was done, and how EnPointe is now setting its sights on new sports to revolutionise.

PrezentBox is a platform to enable and facilitate activity-based gifting for kids. Parents can create a profile that allows family members and friends to contribute money towards their kids’ participation in a sport or activity, rather than just buying another toy to sit on the shelf. Sport and activity providers can also use the platform to help connect with parents and communities. PrezentBox was founded by Dan Frkic, a business manager who built a stellar career with two of Hollywood’s biggest studios, Paramount and 20th Century Fox. Dan’s great mate and former colleague from Paramount and Fox, Con Apostolopoulos, is also on board at PrezentBox, as they help to get kids more active. They both join us on today’s show.

GeoSnapShot is a tech platform creating a centralised place to upload and download photos- with cutting edge AI recognition technology allowing for an instantaneous user experience. GeoSnapShot also broadens the opportunity to commercialise image content, provide brand integrations, and deeper fan engagement and connection. Tech maverick Andy Edwards founded this company, which has just been invested into by the most important media company in world sport, Comcast NBC Universal. Geo’s client list now includes NBC Sports, NASCAR, PGA Golf, the USCAA College sports, the San Antonio Spurs, USA Boxing and Tough Mudder. Andy gives us the inside story of his world beating tech!

Michelle Walshe is a film & TV director who has worked with Warner Bros., the BBC, and her own Augusto Group, based in New York City. Leigh Kenyon is a former soccer star, who played with New Zealand’s Football Kingz in Australia’s National Soccer League. Together they founded CoachMate, drawing upon their individual expertise, to make engaging, easy-to-digest content designed to educate and empower grassroots coaches, parents, kids and communities, to create sporting environments where all kids feel at home. The pair are now backed by Australian sportstech heavyweights Stirling Mortlock and James Godfrey’s XV Capital. Michelle and Leigh tell us how we can all make a better place for kids to play and love sport.

No longer do you need to fly to Arizona for high altitude, because Arizona comes right your bedroom, or lounge room, or anywhere you want to set up Box Altitude. Founder Rico Rogers is a former international pro cyclist, who used to benefits of high altitude training to try to bridge the gap he and other clean riders faced during the drug-riddled racing days of the early 2000s. Now he is allowing everyone to create a high altitude environment at home, through their Altitude Bedroom, Training Cloud and Sleep Cloud offerings. Rico, and leading engineer Callum Taylor, give us the inside story on this world-leading technology.

Craig Horobin has spent the past 25 years at the tech cutting edge of sports broadcasting. His first big gig came as the Olympic Broadcast Manager for Telstra at Sydney 2000. Craig spent the next two decades working on FIFA World Cups, Olympics Games, Commonwealth Games, and major international diplomatic events like APEC. In 2015 he started his own shop- Aircast. Aircast provide ultra-low latency in-venue and at home streaming, and they are now working with one of the world’s largest media companies, Comcast NBC Universal, as their streamer of choice.

Australian rugby union legend Stirling Mortlock, and much-vaunted sports mentor James Godfrey, are dynamically opening-up capital flow into sportstech start-ups, through their firm XV Capital. XV are investing capital, acumen and energy to help start-ups reach their full potential. They are behind the hottest sportstech property in the world, the Smart Ball, from UK company Sportable. Their Smart Ball- or as described by Eddie McGuire, ‘Super Footy’- will now be used in the AFL. It is already used in global rugby, while Nike and Adidas are jostling to bring it into soccer, and Sportable are now pushing into the USA. Mortlock & Godfrey are working with a wide array of tech start-ups like CoachMate- who’s mission is to empower women, girls, and all kids to have positive experiences in sport. And the likes of Queensland business, Clubfunders, which is using tech to help breach the perennial divide between how much money sports have, and how much they need. Mortlock & Godfrey tell us there’s so much room for growth and performance in Australian sports technology.

Steph Bofinger is the founder of Fempro Armour. In 2019, Steph and 12 other ladies completed the first all-female motorbike run of the Simpson Desert- four days of gruelling off-road riding, in the unforgiving, and at times fatal, Australian Outback. For Steph, that ride was part of her healing process, having just escaped and survived domestic violence. While the Desert allowed one dark chapter to close, it brought to life a whole new world. On that ride she discovered the dire lack of female protective equipment for riders. All 13 women faced that same problem. So, Steph decided to find the solution. And Fempro Armour was born. Steph has expanded beyond motorsport, and is working hand-in-hand with Bond University with their Rugby Union program. She has also created a range of products for health care, aged care and disability care. Fempro Armour also create products for men and boys. For more info, check out femproarmour.com

Amy Crosland is one of Australian sport’s leading figures turbo-charging the women’s sportstech sector. Born and raised in iconic Tamworth, Amy has built an epic career, working with United Nations, the UK Ministry of Justice, and recently was Australian boss of global tech firm, Orion. She is now ASTN’s Women in Sportstech Boss, with a mission to empower and promote women and girls to become front and centre, in what has been a male-dominated sphere. For more info on women in sportstech, you can email Amy at: amy.crosland@astn.com.au

Will Wright was at the vanguard of e-commerce 20 years ago, and he now leads ECAL’s European expansion. ECAL are the world’s leading calendar marketing solution, and service the English Premier League, Liverpool FC, FC Barcelona, the International Cricket Council, Formula One and many other of the world’s biggest brands. ECAL are an Australian business that have blitzed the international field, and today we’ll hear how they’ve done it, as we get a look under the hood, discuss the growing role of AI, and look at future growth.

Kronos Enterprise use cutting edge tech to deliver key information to their clients across sport, event management, timing solutions, sustainable energy and cyber defence. Lachlan King is a Master of Business Information Technology from RMIT, and is a Global Senior Business Analyst for Kronos. Lachy and his team delivered the sportstech that powered the Special Olympics in Berlin this year. Today we hear how tech can be purpose built to ensure people of all different abilities can fully immerse themselves in sports, and big event experiences.

Anya Lee is regarded as one of the sharpest young minds in Australian architecture. She works with Smartform Architecture, who have just completed the $250 million rebirth of Marvel Stadium in Melbourne. Smartform have made a name for their algorithmic and computational design processes- creating the cutting edge of new world architecture. And they take a holistic, human centred approach. Anya’s passion and expertise runs deep into health and wellbeing, and she is building the Smart360 platform to create immersive, accessible and individualised health and exercise.

Australian Ben Turner is Global Basketball Boss and Head of APAC for the world’s biggest sportstech company, Sportradar. Ben was an early architect of our industry, first with SportingPulse and Genius, before co-founding Atrium and Synergy Sports. His reputation for landing the biggest clients in the world saw Ben head-hunted by Sportradar, where he now helps them set the global agenda. Ben says Aussies must seize the day on the world stage, and he tell us how you can do it!

Alicia Nagle is a passionate community builder. This firefighter and surf life saver has spent the past decade working in media and marketing across Australia and the United Kingdom. Alicia’s grandpa, Kel Nagle, is an Aussie golf legend, who won the 1960 British Open, and was runner-up at the 1965 US Open. Naturally, Alicia’s first venture as a start-up entrepreneur is Zonely- a platform that uses golf as a vehicle for community-building. Zonely’s accent is on promoting physical, mental and social health through bringing diverse groups of people together to have fun and play golf.

Chris Smiles is one of the world’s leading tech-driven architects. He has mastered the use of digital technology and computational design to create sports stadia that will dominate deep into the 21st Century. He is the man behind the quarter of a billion-dollar Marvel Stadium redevelopment. He was a key member of the winning bid to build Optus Stadium, and was lead designer of the new Adelaide Oval. Prior to starting his own firm, Smartform, Chris did major projects everywhere from China to Kazakhstan, and even worked on the Royal Botanic Gardens and Kings Cross Station in London. Today, Chris gives us an exclusive insight into the cutting edge tech driving the future of sports stadiums.